


A Nonstandard Variation

by lessthanpie



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:05:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lessthanpie/pseuds/lessthanpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all Mal could do to avoid thinking about why he had River in a category with Inara in his brain, which had nothing to do with her status as crew or not-crew and everything to do with beautiful women he shouldn't be wanting like he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nonstandard Variation

Lord, but the girl could be bossier than Mal himself could be. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like it, but it surely was a surprise.

"Do you _want_ this job to fail?" River asked, giving him that inscrutable look of hers that made him squirm; it was just unsettling, knowing she could see right into him and he couldn't lie even if he wanted to.

"I think you already know the answer to that, little albatross. Why don't we just get on with it, and I'll do better this time."

"You are never going to pass for high society if _I_ can't even keep my feet out from under yours. Folks on Santo grow up with this dance like you did with horses. If you can't do it without looking like you're thinking about it, they won't buy you as one of them and this job is over before it starts. Dong ma?"

"I hear you, darlin'. I can do this." He held his hand out toward her and grinned. "Five, six, seven, eight," he counted, and managed to twirl her about properly this time. "Why don't dancers start counting at one like normal folk?"

"I don't know, Mal." River's smile was obscured by her hair as she turned, but the Captain caught it because he was looking; he always seemed to be looking at her, these days. "We're just different."

Mal didn't know about dancers in general but he'd had some time to get used to River in particular, and "different" summed her up nicely. Nothing bad about different, if you asked him.

\---

He had the basics down as well as he was going to, even if they'd had more time. It was a few hours until the party where he'd need to grab the loot without being noticed, hiding in plain sight as just another party guest. He could have danced in his sleep now, and River was just giving him a bit of final instruction on the finer details.

"Good. Now turn." He didn't even come close to stepping on her anymore; amazing what over a week of constant practice could do. "Take my hand and pull me close," she instructed, and he didn't hesitate. He liked this part, with her all small and strong up against him. "Now kiss me."

He didn't hesitate at that direction, either, for all that he hadn't been expecting it. His fingers that rested at her waist tightened when her hand moved up his arm, and when she pulled away to grin up at him, the look on her face would surely be the reason he was going to end up in the Shepherd's special hell.

"Don't do that last part with whoever you dance with tonight," she advised. "It's a nonstandard variation."

He nodded, but she slipped away before he could tell her she shouldn't have done that. At least, that's what he told himself he was going to tell her. Wasn't proper, to think about kissing River. She was part of his crew, and much too young besides.

He hadn't ever been any good at proper, anyhow.

\---

That job went as smooth as jobs ever did (which meant that there had been a minimum of gunfire), and the crew of Serenity was comparatively flush with cash. It was a nice state of affairs, for a change, and Mal didn't even let himself think of what the cost of the bauble he bought in the marketplace could have repaired, someday in the future when they might need it.

No, all he thought about was that it was pretty and River ought to have it, and he didn't even think about the why of it until she was looking at him, puzzled over the bit of shiny he held out for her.

"I already got paid," she said, not taking it from him.

"Ain't payment. It's a gift." He'd have thought that a psychic genius like River wouldn't need that explained, but here they were. "I just... appreciate your help on the job, is all."

"You didn't give Jayne a present," River pointed out. "Or Zoe. Don't you appreciate them?"

"I appreciate them fine. They don't need nothin' sparkly to know it." For all that he had grown to like her, the girl could still grate on his last nerve. "I can't take it back, so do you want it or not?"

"I don't," she said, her tone sharp as she turned and ran off, leaving the baffled Captain in the kitchen frowning after her.

\---

He reckoned it was better to leave her alone for a while, when he didn't even know what he'd done to set her off. It was a few days before he approached her cautiously, almost sure she'd jump down from her perch high above the cargo bay.

"Fixin' to fly away, little bird?" he asked, keeping his voice light and careful.

"No. Haven't got anyplace else to go."

Mal wasn't the type of man who often had an urge to hug people, but something about the sadness in River's voice made him want to do something, anything to take her hurt away.

"Now why would you need someplace else to go, darlin'? When you're already home?"

"I thought I might be, but..." She paused, watching the Captain climbing up into a part of his ship that no one else but River really seemed to venture into. "Can't be just a passenger forever. That's not home."

"What are you talking about, River?" Mal didn't have near as much trouble following River's conversation since the truth of Miranda had changed her, but sometimes she still just didn't seem to make sense. "You haven't been 'just a passenger' in an age."

"I'm not crew, though. Not really. Not like Jayne. You've got me all lumped in with Inara in your head, and you never thought of her as crew, even when she was here."

It was all Mal could do to avoid thinking about why he had River in a category with Inara in his brain, which had nothing to do with her status as crew or not-crew and everything to do with beautiful women he shouldn't be wanting like he did.

"You wanna be like Jayne?" he asked, still trying to understand what she was getting at.

"Yes," answered River firmly. "Only... cleaner."

"Okay." They sat together companionably for a bit, legs dangling from the railing high above the rest of the ship, Mal trying to make sense of her. "No," he said, changing his mind after a bit of thought. "River, you ain't like Jayne, and you never will be. But you're my crew, and that's that, even if you're different from the rest of them." He looked at her cautiously, almost afraid he'd set her off again.

"But I don't want to be different," she insisted, her voice small in a way that he hated to have caused. "I just... I'm not...." He noticed her knuckles growing white as she clung to the railing, struggling to find the words for her thoughts.

Mal wanted very much to know what she wanted, and give it to her if he could, whatever it was, because she was his to take care of.

River sighed, taking a slow deep breath before she could speak. "I just don't want you to leave me behind," she said, so quietly he almost couldn't hear her.

"Ain't about to start doing that, darlin'," he assured her, even though at one point he had been set on letting her walk away. "You know me and your brother don't always see eye to eye on things, but you leaving is not the same as you bein' left. You've got a home here on Serenity as long as you want."

"I want," she said, plaintive. "Home."

"You have. Serenity wouldn't have it any other way."

River seemed to take that as a promise, and he thought she looked a lot calmer than he'd seen her in a long while. Since she'd been teaching him to dance, now that he thought on it.

"I'll give you a present if you answer a question for me." He continued to take care to keep his tone light and playful, realizing that she wouldn't take a gift just for the sake of a gift, when she already thought she'd taken so much from him, though he knew it was the opposite and he was the one taking. Besides, he really _couldn't_ return it, and there was no one else he wanted to have it, anyway.

"Okay," she agreed, looking at him warily.

"Why'd you kiss me? When we were dancing?"

"I didn't." The turned-up corner of her mouth and the mischievous spark in her eye made him have to bite back his own grin, even though he raised an eyebrow at her words. "You kissed me."

"Because you told me to."

"Since when do you do what you're told?" Now she really was laughing at him, and he smiled and shook his head in response.

"Since it's you doing the telling, I reckon. Still don't know why you did."

"You wanted to do it, but you wouldn't have on your own. And I wanted you to do it, but you wouldn't have believed me if I had said so, and you wouldn't have let me do it myself. Sometimes I think I understand you more than most people, but you confuse me, too." Her brow crinkled as she studied him thoughtfully. "You think you're a bad man, but you try so hard to do right. And I appreciate it, more than anyone else, maybe, but I don't think you should have such a narrow definition of 'right.' Because it's not wrong, the way you think of me. Just different than you think it ought to be."

He opened his mouth to reply, but found that he couldn't. Gorram girl got in his brain and twisted everything up until it made sense, even when it shouldn't.

"You can give me a gift now, if you want to," she said, as if doing him a favor though he thought maybe she was still teasing him.

"Can I now?" he asked in the same teasing tone, reaching into his pocket where he'd been keeping the bit of pretty that made him think of River. Holding on to the railing with one hand, he leaned toward River and awkwardly fastened the clip to her hair with his other hand. He didn't do a very good job of it, as he wasn't much in practice in having anything to do with women's hair nor was he good at balancing on railings up on top of his ship.

River reached up with both hands to fix it in her hair, balancing without holding on at all. Mal flinched, but fought off the urge to grab her and hold on to keep her from falling.

"I won't fall," she said, smiling at him with her hands still in her hair. "But if I ever do-"

"I'll catch you," he said, without realizing he was going to speak at all.

River nodded, looking at him with an odd sort of smile he didn't think he'd ever seen from her before. "You will." There wasn't any doubt in her voice at all, and when her hands came back down to the railing her left came to rest on his right where he was holding on.

He didn't bother to hide his own smile, looking at the sparkle in her hair, like stars in the black. It was why he'd bought it, why it had made him think of her enough to spend hard-earned cash on something they couldn't eat or put back into the ship. It was worth it, to him, just to see her wearing something pretty, like the fine fancy lady he expected she ought to be if her life had gone as it should have. He let go of the railing and turned his hand over, her small fingers disappearing in his grasp. He reckoned that she wouldn't let him fall, either.

\---

The doc didn't even put up a fight anymore when his little sister went out on jobs with the Captain. Not that Mal would have taken any heed of it if he had, but at least it saved energy, not having to deal with that anymore. It was usually the rougher places he took her, her specialized skills better put to use where Alliance attention was not, even now when she wasn't officially "wanted"; it seemed certain that should they ever fully understand what it was they had let go, they would want it back. Mal didn't intend on letting them take her, so it was best just to avoid attention.

The doctor might not have put up a fight, but his sister surely did. Most of the muscle-bound mercenaries who were the ones to cause the usual trouble would grin to themselves and think they'd be having an easy time of it, when they saw that the only thing between them and a double cross was a fragile looking girl. He didn't ask it of her often, but she would wipe those grins off soon enough, should the occasion warrant it, and Mal got a kick out of seeing goons who looked like Jayne run off by her. It was when Reavers showed up, though, that River was at her most useful.

Wasn't anything they went looking for; in fact, Mal had turned down more than one job that would take them too close to Reaver space. Too hard for Zoe and the rest of the crew, and Mal didn't like to risk his ship and his crew any more than he had to. Sometimes, though, the potential payoff was just too good to turn down when they had a secret weapon like River. They didn't always encounter Reavers, after all, and the risk was something that could feed them all for a long time.

She took care of most of them, with her own sharp blade and whatever else she could get her hands on, while Mal stood back and picked them off one at a time with cold, careful bullets to the head through the rain that had started to get worryingly heavy. When the last one had fallen and there was nothing standing but him and River, again, he felt a surge of pride that turned to shame the second she took a step toward him and stumbled. River never faltered in her step, and he knew, instantly, that she was hurt.

"Jayne!" he barked into the hand link. "Get down here in that gorram shuttle and pick us up!"

"No can do, Cap'n." His voice crackled with the lightning. "Storm's too bad. Can't put her down. Didja get the loot?"

Mal swore loud and long before answering. "Just get us out of here, soon as you can." He had the loot, little bit of tech in his pocket that he'd thought the payment for would be worth coming into Reaver space. He knew by the sight of River's too-pale face that nothing had been worth asking this of her.

"We got 'em all," she said, grinning at him through the rain when he was close enough to hear her through the storm. She grabbed at his sleeve for balance, and a little piece of his heart came off in her hand; he felt it go.

"You did," he murmured, pushing her dripping hair out of her face to get a better look at her. "Where are you hurt, darlin'?"

"Just a scratch," she answered faintly, looking down at the tear in the side of her dress that went deep into her skin. It didn't look too bad, with the rain washing the blood away as quick as it was coming out, but her surprised gasp of pain when Mal touched her said maybe it was worse than they both thought.

"Ain't hardly anything," the Captain agreed, lifting her up as though she weighed nothing and carrying her to the meager shelter of the Reavers' wreck of a ship. She needed a doctor, but all she had was him and the rudimentary first aid kit from his coat pocket. Her wound was so long and deep, closing it up emptied the one dermaplast weave applicator he had. He hoped the rain wouldn't wash it away before he could get her real help, when she'd obviously already lost a hell of a lot more blood than she could spare. "Just be still, little albatross. Soon's this rain lets up a little, we'll be on our way home. I'm betting your brother'll patch you up good right before he takes a swing at me for taking you out here in the first place."

"Didn't ever take me anywhere I wouldn't have gone on my own," she said, breathless through teeth chattering in the cold.

He took off his coat to wrap around her, pulling her close to share what heat he could. "Hush," he ordered her, the bluish cast of her lips scaring him more than he was willing to admit. The coldness of her mouth on his surprised him into returning her kiss a lot more intently than he might have otherwise; seemed like the only way of getting any warmth into her, just then. "Shouldn't be doing that," he protested weakly as she pulled him back to her for a second time.

"If I'm dying, I can do what I want."

"You ain't dyin'."

"You think I am."

"Well... you ain't," he said weakly. He pressed his chilly hand against her cold cheek and knew he wouldn't let her slip away so easily. "You ain't."

"Stay around a long time to drive you crazy?"

"You better," he said, and he realized how rarely anything he had ever said to River had been a direct order; she had always just followed him, and he'd known she would, into anything. He wasn't sure if he ought to be sorry or grateful. "I'm the captain, and I'm ordering you, River Tam. No dying."

"Aye, Cap'n," she murmured, her voice drifting a bit before she shook herself back to alertness. "Talk to me?"

"I'll take a turn, but then you need to talk back at me, dong ma?" He knew, _knew_ , that if he let her slip away there would be no getting her back. He wrapped his arms tight around her, determined to keep her warm and alive. "What do you want me to talk about?"

"Horses," she answered without pause.

"Horses?"

"Yes. When you think of home, you think of Serenity and then you think of horses. Why?"

They spent a long time talking of homes neither of them could ever go back to, Mal's because the Alliance had ruined it to teach those who wanted freedom a lesson, River's because she was no longer wanted, when she scared them so much they didn't know what to do with her. He kept her talking, reminding her as much as he could that she had a home anyway, people who loved her and didn't want to let her go. That he definitely wouldn't ever leave her behind anywhere, certainly not on this le se moon.

Felt like years before the rain let up enough to let a shuttle through, and Mal hadn't ever thought of Jayne as beautiful until he saw him then, behind the controls and taking them back to Serenity.

\---

Hours later, and Mal still felt like he'd never be warm again. Had nothing to do with the fact that he was still soaked down to the skin and everything to do with how close he'd come to losing his good luck bird.

"Never again," he promised the still and pale girl in the infirmary, his voice low and serious even if she was asleep, all properly stitched up with at least some of her blood replaced. "Not Reavers."

"That's right. Never again," said Simon, putting away his supplies. "You aren't using her like this anymore. No Reavers, no jobs, nothing."

Mal had forgotten he was there, so intent was he on watching for color coming back into River's cheeks. "You still ain't the one giving orders on my boat."

"She's my _sister_ ," said Simon, equally unwilling to give it up. "She nearly died, and there won't be a next time for that."

"She's my crew," growled Mal. "What jobs she does is between her and me. I say she goes, she goes."

"We'll leave your boat, then."

Mal just sighed. "You ain't indentured or beholden to me or this boat any more'n you want to be. Ain't under contract or any such thing, and you're free to leave whenever you want. I promised your little sister there that she'd have a home here as long as she wants it, though, and I won't let you take her nowhere she don't want to go. So unless you're planning to leave without her, I'd take it up with River before you make any firm plans."

"She's just a kid," Simon started, when River sat up abruptly.

" _She_ can hear you both, you know. And she's not a kid, or a weapon, or anything at all. She's cold, and tired, and she hates it in this room, and being talked about like she's not here." Clutching a blanket tightly around herself, River carefully rose from the clinic bed and left before either of the men could stop her.

Watching River flee from the infirmary even when it was obvious that she was still feeling poorly took most of the fight out of both the Captain and the doctor.

"I ain't leaving her nowhere she don't want to be left." That was Mal's final word on the subject. He left without waiting to see if Simon would try to stop him; he reckoned the doc knew he couldn't give his sister much better than she already had.

\---

Felt good to finally get out of his still-damp boots and clothes. Mal didn't even bother to turn on the light in his quarters, just changed into something warm and dry and comfortable, his bunk a better prospect with each passing second.

Until something moved under the blankets.

His hand went for his weapon before he saw what it was. "River. Darlin', you can't be in here."

"I didn't watch you when you were undressing," she said, blinking at him through the dim light. "I could any time I wanted to, you know. I _am_ psychic."

"That's mighty polite o'you," he said dryly. "You can't be in here because your brother will lose what's left of his mind to find you in here. In my bed." Where he didn't plan to be now, because he wasn't about to ask her to leave any sooner than he was going lie there with her.

"Simon only knows thirty-seven percent of my hiding places on this ship. He won't find me."

That didn't seem like much of an argument _or_ a comfort to Mal. "Thirty-seven percent?"

"Thirty-seven." River moved, trying not to favor her hurt side though Mal could plainly see that she was, to make room for him in his small bed. "I'm _cold_ ," she said, and there were no wiles in her, just a plaintive sort of longing to be warm again.

"The black's a cold place, little one," he said, cautiously agreeing with her by sitting on the bed. If he was honest, Mal had to admit that he liked how she felt all curled up against him. How much he liked that her shivering lessened when he put an arm around her; careful, so careful not to hurt her because he hadn't ever wanted that and wouldn't ever let it happen again.

"It's okay," she said in as near a whisper as could still be heard. "Even Simon knows that I'll be all right, in a little time. So don't feel bad. It's my own fault. I got careless, because I knew you were there."

Mal knew exactly whose fault it was; he was the Captain, and he was responsible for everything that happened to the crew under his command. "Don't let it happen again," he said, voice gruff with his own fear. "Can't have you bein' careless. Got too many people depending on you, albatross. Got a doctor needs lookin' after, for one, and I don't fancy that job on my lonesome."

"I'm sorry," whispered River, and Mal's heart cracked a little bit more. "I'll be good. Just let me stay."

He held on to her tighter, breathed in the scent of her hair that smelled like the infirmary now, though he caught the remains of the battle: blood and torn flesh and metal. "Ain't lettin' you do otherwise. Ain't lettin' you be sorry, either. Nothin' for you to be sorry over. You did good, River. Good as any crew I ever had, and I ain't like to let you go anytime soon, dong ma?"

"Okay." River's small hand slipped under the Captain's, smooth fingers sliding against his rough ones as though they had been made to fit together. Her head on his chest felt like it belonged there, too, and Mal knew if he let himself think on this development too much he was booking his own passage to the special hell that the Shepherd used to go on about. "It's okay," she said again, squeezing his fingers once before her hand went limp in his and he knew she was asleep.

It had been a long day, and it didn't take him long to follow her. It was a good sleep.

\---  
Weeks passed. Good ones, Mal reckoned. Better than average. They had money (even though it felt dirty to Mal, nearly losing River to get it), and River was healing up well, and it was as good as things got before he started getting worried about things heading south again. He wasn't quite sure how it happened that River ended up in his bed most nights, but he certainly wasn't going to complain about it. He doubted the doc would believe him, if he ever found out where his little sister had taken to sleeping, that nothing much improper had happened; together was the only way either of them seemed to get any real sleep.

Sometimes he'd find himself kissing her, never sure if it was his doing or hers; it was a sweet thing, all soft and warm where life had made them both hard and cold. They never talked about it, not when River seemed to have decided that such a thing didn't need words and Mal didn't like to think on it at all, when all he could hear when he did was the voice of Shepherd Book, a man who wasn't easy to ignore even now that he was dead.

River's birthday came up, and it was easier than they all expected for them to keep the party plans from her. Mal suspected that she was just letting them keep their secret. He supposed surprises were few and far between for someone who could read what people were thinking, and so let her pretend she didn't know. He hoped it would distract her from noticing the gift he got her himself.

"I didn't peek. Not at the presents," she said, grinning up at Mal with the shiny foil crown Kaylee had insisted the birthday girl wear slipping down her hair and making her look impossibly young.

Mal smiled back, ignoring again the gnawing in his gut that showed up whenever he remembered that, for all the things she had been through, all that she knew and had done and could do, River was still just a kid and he was a dirty old man to let her be what she was becoming to him. He watched her open a package from Kaylee, a pretty dress full of ruffles and youth, and knew there ought to be some boy, some green kid not Malcolm Reynolds, to dance with her when she wore that dress, to be thinking of how to get her out of it because that was what the tingle he felt when she laughed told him to do.

Mal hated the fictional kid who had suddenly shown up in his head, mostly because he knew it would be a better thing, for River, to have someone young wanting her. Someone to discover everything with her, all those first things the Alliance had taken from her when they had taken her childhood, instead of a man like him who had already done too much and seen more of the 'verse than he had ever wanted.

He was removed from his bitter, rambling thoughts by the sudden appearance of River in the flesh, standing in front of him and grinning as she placed her crown on the Captain's head. "I didn't peek," she promised again, her voice quiet and, with all the rest of them cleaning up the cake and laughing over something Jayne said, it was almost just the two of them in the corner of the galley. "You thought about this a lot, though. Tried to pick just the right thing."

"That I did, little albatross. Took some trouble to find something good enough." He had scoured the Persephone marketplace looking for what he thought would be a fitting gift to show River how he saw her strength and grace and beauty without making it anyone else's business.

"It's been very difficult not to look," River confessed, taking the box. "It's the first birthday I've had in a long time, though, and I wanted it to be a good one, with surprises like a birthday is supposed to have."

Mal glanced quickly at the rest of the crew to make sure no one was paying attention, and then gently tucked a bit of her hair back behind her ear, noting with a smile the sparkle of the clip she wore. He wanted every day to be a good one for her, not just her birthday, but something like that needed more poetical language than he had behind it to make it sound right. He just brushed a fingertip over her cheek and then dropped his hands before anyone who might protest could notice that he'd had them on her.

River's smile at him was bright as she started to open the package, but it faded quickly once she saw what the Captain had seen fit to give her. Mal had seen her moods switch quick as lightning before, but nothing much like the way she went from shiny birthday girl to stiff and barely polite the way she did just then.

"Thank you very much," she said coolly. River put the top back on the box without looking inside again and placed it carefully on the table as though it might be about to explode before she turned and left the room abruptly.

Zoe, who Mal figured saw a lot more than she let on, raised an eyebrow and lifted a corner of the lid of the box River had abandoned on the table. "Mal," she said, shaking her head. "Why you would think that a pistol is an appropriate gift to give _any_ girl for her eighteenth birthday is beyond me, but River? You might as well give the girl a copy of that video from the Maidenhead if you want to remind her how far from normal she is."

"What? Zoe. That's not why I- I thought she'd like it." Mal was honestly confused. "It's a girly little thing, and look at the fancy handle and the engraving on the cylinder. Why wouldn't she want something that's to keep her safe, especially when it's pretty?"

"Sir." Zoe only barely contained her laughter, much to the Captain's annoyance. "Next time you want to buy _anyone_ a present, even if you think it's a great idea, ask for help. It's not ever a good sign when someone runs away from you after opening a gift, even when it's a girl who's a little bit feng le."

\---

Mal's bed was a small one, but he found it much too big to sleep in by himself anymore. For the first night in a long while, there was no River curled up beside him, no soft sighs against his mouth as he kissed her and his hands molded the thin fabric of her nightgown taut against her curves and hers slid along his bare chest and into his hair and pulled him close...

With a frustrated grunt, he flopped back over onto his side, cursing himself for getting used to her, for letting her into his bed even if they hadn't gone near as far as they did in his mind, when he let himself believe she wasn't looking in there. He shouldn't be thinking of her like that anyhow, and if the occasion of her birthday ( _Eighteen!_ He felt dirty that he had to remind himself how young she was right in the middle of thinking about how much he wanted her.) didn't prove that, nothing would.

Giving up sleep as a bad job, Mal headed to the kitchen. If Jayne hadn't left any whiskey behind, he'd settle for tea, but he would surely appreciate the whiskey more. He hadn't thought he expected to find River there, but he wasn't surprised to see her, all tucked into one of the kitchen chairs with chin resting on her drawn-up knees.

"Evenin'," he greeted her cautiously, not wanting to set her off again if he could help it. Was a hard thing, when he didn't know what he'd done in the first place except to give her a present, which was something that seemed a lot more trouble than maybe it was worth when she reacted like she did to them. He found the whiskey and two glasses, and sat down in the chair beside River's without looking at her directly. She didn't move as he watched her just from the corner of his eye and poured a good amount of whiskey into both glasses. He took a healthy swig from one before pushing the other toward River, some sort of strange peace offering, he knew, but he wasn't sure what else to do. "Reckon you're old enough for that now. Don't tell your brother."

"I'm old enough for a lot of things." River raised her eyes from the gift box she'd been staring at, still on the table where she had abandoned it earlier, and fixed her baleful glare on Mal, who only flinched a little bit. "Simon doesn't want to know about the things I'm old enough for, but you understand."

"Do I now?" He didn't look away from her, though he could plainly see how upset she was even if he still didn't get why. "I think you might have to be explaining some o' those things to me, River. I ain't any kind of genius, and I'm goin' to have to confess to getting a mite lost in the twists and turns o' your mind, there."

" _That_." She inclined her head slightly toward the box, which seemed a lot bigger to Mal than he remembered it being a few hours ago. "You put all kinds of thought into a gift that you thought suited me, and you picked a _weapon_. I thought... I was sure.... I hoped you thought of me as a girl. A woman. Not a weapon. I don't want to _be_ that. Not to you or to anyone, but... especially not to you." She picked up the glass of whiskey and took a cautious sip.

Mal wanted to grin at the face she made at the taste of the whiskey, but he didn't. Not when he was beginning to understand what had upset her. "That ain't what I meant that gift to mean, River. It's... it's a fine weapon, true, but that ain't you. It's me. Something to protect you, if I can't. I'm your gun hand, but when I ain't around... I want you safe, and far from anything that might hurt you. I don't like you getting close to things that need killing. A gun lets you do that from a distance. I want you to have distance from the violence, to keep you close to me."

He grabbed her chair by the arms and pulled it across the floor, turned it so she was facing him, and knew that words were going to have to be said, when even a reader like River got confused without them.

"I like you close to me. I like... I like _you_ , River. The girl - woman - you're turning out to be, now that you're gettin' free of what was done to you. I ain't one for fancy words or nothin' of the sort, but I reckon you know that. I reckon you know a lot of things without even knowin' that you know 'em, but that's something you should know you know, and remember, always."

He tilted her chin up with one finger, forcing her to look at him. He imagined he could feel her in his mind, but it didn't make him uncomfortable. He kind of liked it, the idea that she could know what he really meant even when he couldn't work out how to say it right.

River looked at him for a moment, and then her face lit up in a smile, the quick one she'd first shown Mal the first time she'd flown Serenity. It was like the first glimpse of the stars after too much time on one world, and he couldn't do anything other than return it in kind.

"I like you, too. I like how you already are. I don't like guns, though," she said, eyes fixed on his though they both felt the gift box pulling at her consciousness from across the table. "For myself, I mean. I appreciate them when it's you or Zoe or even Jayne using them, but I'm...." River knew she didn't need a gun to be deadly, but she didn't like to be reminded. "No touching guns," she reminded him of a promise she had made long ago.

Mal traced her jaw with his finger. "No touching guns," he said quietly, thinking that he understood her at least a little bit. "I'll find a buyer for it next time we're someplace with trading," he promised. "Buy you something else. Something pretty. Pretty girl ought to have pretty things."

River shook her head slightly, her hand lightly moving up his arm, over his shoulder, tracing his jaw, until it rested against his cheek. "Don't need more things. Need...." She shook her head. "Things I've forgotten, and things I remember. You make me forget, and remember, bad and good. Killer and girl. The same but not."

She was leaning so far forward in her chair that she had nearly tipped herself into his lap. Mal had his hands on her elbows, holding her steady. "Just a girl," he murmured, unable to look away from her face, so close to his own. "Beautiful genius girl. Ought to have better than a mean broken-down old man like me."

"Not old." She smiled, and it was his whole world in that moment: home and family and happiness he hadn't ever quite been able to grasp in too long. "Not mean or broken. Not to me." She pressed her mouth against his, her body following as much as the chairs would let her. "Don't give me _things_ , when I only want you."

Mal closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to stay in this kiss, this moment, even though he knew it wasn't quite right.

"River," he said finally, trying to find some air to breathe that was not filled with her. She was in his lap now, and he was dizzy with the nearness of her. He brushed her hair back from her face, holding her away for a moment just so he could think. "River... this ain't right."

"Ain't wrong," she said, as though she had been considering this situation for a long time before coming to a conclusion. Mal supposed she had, knowing a bit now how her mind worked even if he couldn't always keep up with it. "I see the things in your mind. I try not to look, but it's hard when it's me you're seeing in there. I want to feel what you feel, in your imagination when I'm lying under you. I can't see it from my side when it's only in your head. Give me that point of view. I want it. I want _you_."

"River..." His fingers curled in her hair, and he wanted nothing more than to give her what she wanted, when there were no wiles in her even now, no artifice or anything but utter truth. "What would the Shepherd say?" he blurted without thinking, as his mind strayed to the special sort of hell he knew was already waiting for him.

She laughed, and Mal felt warm all over; he knew he wasn't going to fight her anymore, even though he knew he ought to. He didn't _want_ to fight her, and if that made him a bad man, well. He already knew what he was.

"Shepherd Book would say it's important to take love when and where you find it."

"And who said anything about love, little albatross?" he asked, startled at the word.

River rested her hand against his chest, and Mal felt his heart beating hard, like it hadn't in a long time until it was against her. "Not something that needs to be said," she answered after a moment. "It's just one of those things that _is_ , like breathing and dancing." She leaned forward again, brushed her lips lightly across his jaw, and then slid off his lap like she'd never been there.

"Hǎo shuì, Captain," she said, leaving him with nothing but the scent of her, and Jayne coming in through the other door to the kitchen.

It was a good few minutes before Mal trusted himself to get up, even with Jayne banging around the galley and grumbling about how little cake there was left. He walked all the way through the ship before going to his bunk, checking on things even though he had done it just a few hours ago, before going to bed the first time. He just couldn't sleep without knowing all was well for Serenity, at least.

He expected to find River in his bed, and was sorely disappointed when she was not. There was no doubt that she had been there, however, as she had left behind a note on his pillow.

 _There's a saying that good things come to those who wait._ I _can be patient._

Mal smiled and shook his head. He could be patient, too. If he had to be. For now he figured he'd just try to sleep.

He'd barely closed his eyes when he heard the door to his quarters open, and he sat up quickly to see River's bare feet and legs descending the ladder, her nightgown and the rest of her appearing like a ghost in the dim light. Almost before she was fully in the room, Mal crossed the small space and had her pressed against the wall, hands in her hair as he kissed her, hard and proper and well.

"Thought you could be patient," he murmured against her ear, letting her breathe even though he couldn't have done so himself even if he'd wanted to just then.

"I can. I just decided I don't want to be."

Surely they had been this close before, all those nights she'd slept against him, but Mal couldn't remember ever feeling her like this, every bit of her through that thin nightgown.

She shivered when his teeth grazed her earlobe, and he tasted her skin, reveling in what he hadn't let himself want outside of unbidden dreams. "Patience overrated, is it, albatross?"

"No. It's stupid."

Mal laughed, but when he looked at River's face he knew she was very serious.

"Maybe we don't live as close to the edge as we used to, but it's not safe enough to put anything off. Tomorrow might be a bad day, and I'd miss... I don't want to miss anything. I want..." One small hand held tight to his arm, the other pressed against his cheek, and he was caught there, by her. No escape, even if he'd been looking for it. "I want."

She was the one pulling him closer now, and he was caught in her current like the river she was named for, strong and swift and true, and he didn't try to resist. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, with her and her nightgown all pooled up around her thighs and his shirt off and his trousers undone, and he'd had her in his bed many times now but this somehow felt more real. His head filled with countless fantasies, and in that moment he felt like he had all the time in the world to show her everything he'd ever wanted to do to her and with her.

River was the one to stop first, and she sat, breathing heavily as she studied him with a frank mixture of curiosity and awe. "People don't really do all of those things at once, do they?"

Took Mal a moment to figure out what she was talking about. "No, darlin'," he said, smiling as he stroked her hair. "Most just pick a few that seem like a good idea at the time and focus on those."

"Yes, all right. That makes sense."

Mal caught the look of relief that flitted across her face as she leaned back in to kiss him, her hands light on his skin not enough to stop the thought _Wo de ma, she's so young._ going through his mind. He tried to stop it, before she could hear his thoughts loud in her own head, and tried to remind himself that she was old enough for whatever she wanted to be old enough for, and special to boot. All that did was make the Shepherd's voice echo through his head again: _special... special... special..._.

And then River was just staring at him again. "I'm not the craziest person on this ship," she said after a moment, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a grin.

There weren't a lot of people who could make Mal laugh anymore. Sure, Jayne was worth a chuckle every now and then, but real, true laughter wasn't a common thing with him these days. In that moment, he forgot all the things that made this seem wrong, and River was everything to him just then, when they were both laughing and he held her so close, and nothing else really mattered.

"I reckon that's true," he managed to get out before she was kissing him again, and her teeth caught his lower lip in a way that made him gasp.

"Sorry," she murmured, and started to slip away from him before he caught her with his hands on her waist.

He pulled her back onto his lap, though mostly she was kneeling on the bed, and looked her square in the eye. "That was a good noise," he promised. "You can't hurt me, River." He laughed, then, over the way she raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, I'm supposin' you can. I don't think you will, but I'll tell you if you do, dong ma? And you're t' do the same, if'n I do something you don't like, and I'll stop."

River nodded solemnly, and her wordless trust in him moved him to kiss her.

Moved him to do more than kiss her on the mouth, and his hands worked their way up her thighs, under her nightgown while he tasted her throat, her collarbone, the sweet swell of her breast through the thin fabric before he pushed the whole thing up over her head. He surrounded himself with her, the scent of her and the soft urgent sounds she breathed into his ear, echoing the insistent working of his fingers between her legs. He concentrated on the changing pitch of her voice, and he watched her, with the flush of bliss across her face, and knew he couldn't be sorry, not when he got to be the one to see her like that, raw and free and utterly unafraid.

He didn't stop, but tangled his free hand in her hair and pulled her toward him, roughly quieting her cries with his mouth until she was kissing him more than just gasping against him, and he felt her clutching his shoulders to hold herself upright in his lap, and the trembling against his fingers reminded him that he still had so much to show her.

"You might be the prettiest thing I ever saw," he murmured when she had opened her eyes again.

"Might?" She was clearly trying to maintain the teasing they had shared before, but she shook all over, even her voice, in the aftermath of his touch.

"Well, I've got this ship, see. Serenity. Prettiest in the 'verse."

"Oh, I know her. She's in my blood."

It occurred to Mal that this was closer than he would ever have expected to come to making love to his own ship, here in the form of this flesh and blood girl.

It was a mite unsettling.

"I'm not a ship," insisted River, and her voice was a mixture of laughter and anxiety that brought the Captain back to the reality of the moment.

"No. You're an albatross, a river, everything shiny all in one pretty puzzle box."

"I'm just me."

"That's what I mean." He lowered her to the bed, kissing her all the way down. He leaned on his elbow and rubbed his thumb gently between her eyes until the frown line there relaxed and she was smiling up at him again.

"I think you _are_ poetical, just a bit." River decided, tracing his jaw with one finger.

He was inclined to believe her, when she so often made sense to him that others couldn't see. "Is that so?"

"It is," she promised, and she was sliding against him, her body learning as she went, like an improvised dance that was like nothing he'd ever imagined until the last of his clothes were disappearing.

He wasn't ever sure, after, if the stars he saw falling into her skin, like they were going home, were real or only his imagination; didn't matter, when he felt like she had made him over into one of those stars, the ones that were hers. And when he settled into her, he tried to be slow and careful, mindful that she was a bit of sky that really belonged only to him, and to herself. It was only at the end of it (or the beginning, because he couldn't tell the difference there, either, when he tried to remember after), when she gasped against his skin and her hands shook, pulling him harder against her, that he was selfish, and let himself take, and fall, and they caught each other.

\---

When he woke up, she was looking at him. Just sitting up in his bed, naked as the day she was born, watching him sleep. Might have creeped a man more sane than Malcolm Reynolds right out, but it took a bit more than being stared at to damage his calm. "Something I can help you with, albatross?"

River shook her head, the slight flush across her cheeks barely visible in the dim light. "I was only wondering.... I mean.... That was nice, last night. Everything I wanted. Only... there's so much more. All those things in your head. Infinite. I still want."

"Infinite," he repeated, struck by the sight of her long dark hair falling in waves along the curve of her breast. "I don't know as I can promise you all that, and I ain't a man who's got a happy ever after out there, but I can try if you want."

"I just said I that I do." She curled up against him again; her sigh of contentment giving him all kinds of ideas that should have felt wrong but didn't quite. "A happy right now is more than I thought I'd get," she said, quietly matter-of-fact about all the things the Alliance had taken from her in the past. Her present and her future were only stolen moments, and she knew it.

Mal knew it, too, and it had already become his business to keep them from taking anything else from her. His fingers lightly traced the still-fresh scar on her side, something that would always remind him how easily she could be lost, if he wasn't careful.

"And this one's my fault," she said, pressing her own hand against the mark left behind by the sword of the Alliance Operative. "He wouldn't have bothered you, if you had given him what he wanted. If you hadn't kept me." It hadn't been an option then to give her up, and it was even less so now, though neither of them had to say it. "I won't let it happen again."

Mal didn't have to be told that she meant it; Zoe and Kaylee had filled him in well enough on what he'd missed, the way she'd jumped into a horde of Reavers, no question about giving up her own life to save her brother and crew. "I'm the Captain," he chided. "My job to keep the crew safe, not the other way around."

"On a normal ship, maybe. Our arrangement is more -"

"Nonstandard?" he suggested, realizing how she was always seeming to teach him to dance now.

"Precisely."

Chinese translations:  
dong ma?: do you understand?  
le su: trash  
feng le: insane  
hǎo shuì: good night  
wo de ma: my God 


End file.
